It has been a little more than four months since we paused our study through the life of David, but in this message we return to it as we take up 1 Samuel 26 together. In this chapter Saul will be informed by the Ziphites that David and his men are hiding in their territory, and Saul will come hunting for him with 3000 men. However, David will sneak up on Saul while he is unaware and come away with items that prove that he got close enough to kill Saul but did not. Then David will call out to Saul from a distance and hold up the items as proof of his goodwill and innocence. Saul will then confess that he has been wrong in his treatment of David.
Does all that sound familiar?
It should because the events of chapter 26 and chapter 24 are almost exactly the same. In fact, in places they are word-for-word the same, and thematically they are so similar that I almost skipped chapter 26 altogether reasoning that we already covered this, but if I dismissed chapter 26 as extraneous and unnecessary and moved on to the next chapter I would risk replacing God’s judgments with my own. I’m tempted to think that chapter 26 is unnecessary repetition, but God, in His perfect wisdom, has preserved both chapter 24 and 26 in His Word. Perhaps He wants us to wrestle with the repetition of these two very similar accounts.
I hope you will listen in as we dive back into the life of David.